Mayor Domenic Sarno of Springfield, Massachusetts, said this week he won't grant permission for further refugee resettlement in his city.
An executive order from President Donald Trump, among other things, would require cities and states to sign off on refugee placements.
"It places an unfair burden on our school department and other city services, and therefore on our taxpayers," Sarno said. "The City of Springfield has done more than its fair share."
Maxine Stein with Jewish Family Service, a resettlement agency, said they tried to sit down with Sarno.
"To resolve any issues, to clarify any concerns and to basically, hopefully, talk with him about the importance of Springfield as being a refugee resettlement city," Stein said. "And we got no response."
Panelist Natalia Muñoz noted that agencies have limited contracts with the federal government to resettle refugees.
"And once that contract is up, the caseworkers disappear, the interpreters disappear, the job development coaches — everybody disappears," she said.
Muñoz said that means the city is left responsible for the families, and accommodating them as well as possible, with limited funds.
"Sarno sometimes does not speak very delicately about delicate issues," she said, "but I think he's calling out the resettlement agencies' failure in following up with refugees that they host, they bring over to Springfield."
Sarno's announcement came a day after the Springfield City Council passed a resolution supporting refugees in the city. This is far from the first time the council and the mayor have disagreed about immigration issues.
Panelist Mike Dobbs said there's an important difference between resettling refugees, which is coordinated by the U.S. State Department, and the so-called "sanctuary city" movement. That label, which Sarno has refused to apply to Springfield, identifies communities with protections for immigrants in the country without authorization.
"What we're talking about is what Natalia said. It's agencies that basically get paid to bring over people who certainly need to be resettled someplace safe," Dobbs said. "But then there's a very limited amount of support, and now you have people who are struggling to learn English, they're struggling to learn the culture, they're struggling to understand what their role is in this country."
Dobbs said Springfield is a poor city with finite resources.
"I think that the mayor is trying to make a very valid point," he said. "I'm just hoping that people don't get it confused with his stance about sanctuary cities, because that's completely different."
There's also been a lot made over the cleanup efforts of the Springfield Department of Public Works after a lingering storm this month dumped more than a foot of snow. Residents, the mayor and City Council were all critical of how street plowing took place. Dobbs chimed in with his displeasure in a column. Lots of changes have been proposed since the storm, includling pre-treating more streets, and posting an online plowing map.
With 2019 winding down, our guests also give us their top stories from the region for the year, and stories that didn't get enough attention.
Guests:
- Mike Dobbs, managing editor, The Reminder
- Natalia Muñoz, host of Vaya Con Muñoz on WHMP
Listen to The Short List Podcast.
